


To Have and To Hold

by 221b_hound



Series: Captains of Industry [34]
Category: Sherlock (TV)
Genre: Alternate Universe - Coffee Shops & Cafés, Alternate Universe - Hipsters, Australia, Honeymoon, M/M, Marriage Equality, Melbourne, Same-Sex Marriage, Wedding Fluff, Wedding Night
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-01-09
Updated: 2018-03-13
Packaged: 2019-03-02 16:07:53
Rating: Explicit
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 10
Words: 12,433
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/13321749
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/221b_hound/pseuds/221b_hound
Summary: This is John and Sherlock's wedding from John's point of view - and the reception and honeymoon that followed.





	1. Absent Friends

**Author's Note:**

> I'll add to the tags as I go.

Greg tapped on the door to John’s studio and waited.

“Come in.” John’s voice held a slightly strained pitch. Greg darted inside and closed the door behind him.

“Everyone here?” John asked

“Everyone,” Greg confirmed. “Your folks seem nice.”

A short, sharp nod, then John twisted one end of his moustache nervously and he stretched his neck as though his collar was too tight. John, who always seemed supremely at home in his suits, readjusted his collar, his cuffs, his waistcoat.

“John. Mate. Everything’s fine. Your parents and your sister are happy to be here and getting on with everyone like a house on fire.”

“I’ve never understood why that’s meant to be a good thing.”

“Breathe.”

John breathed. Exhaled slowly.

Another tap at the door. Greg opened it to a middle aged woman who smiled tremulously.

“Edie!”

“John!” She smiled more widely and Greg stood aside to let her into the room. She hugged the groom then took a box from her handbag to give to him.

“Here you go,” she said.

“Thanks.” John’s hand shook slightly as he took it from her. He held it pressed against his stomach. “Thank you. So much. Greg will give them back after the ceremony, if that’s okay?”

“More than,” Edie promised. “Bill would have been so happy for you. You know that, right?”

“I know.”

“He’d have liked your Sherlock, too.”

“I hope so.”

“I know so. Anyone who made you happy, he would have loved. You were like a brother to Bill. So that makes you my brother too, doesn’t it?”

Bill's sister Edie hugged him again, and John held hard to her for a minute. He was damp-lashed when they parted.

“See you soon,” said Edie. She kissed his cheek, then hugged Greg. “And thank you too.”

“It’s my honour,” Greg assured her.

Edie left and Greg waited while John gazed at the box. Opened it.

Inside it was a row of army medals.

“Greg.”

“Still here, mate.”

“Are you sure you’re okay with… with Bill’s…?”

“More than okay, John. Honoured, like I said.”

“You’re not just my best man, Greg. You’re my best friend. Well, after Sherlock, but Bill…”

“John, I don’t need to have been your only best-friend-after-Sherlock. Bill Murray sounds like he was a good bloke. And not just because he saved your life out there.”

“Bill and I always promised each other. I’d be his best man, he’d be mine. I wish he’d made it home.”

“Well, he’ll be here for you, as much as we can make that happen. Come on.” Greg stood tall and offered his chest. John took the medals and pinned them reverently to Greg’s dark suit. John's eyes glittered, and he gave another of his short, sharp nods to no-one in particular.

Greg felt a bit teary himself. For all he was a close friend, and knew about John’s art and his studio, this week was the first time he’d actually seen the _sanctum sanctorum_ itself. Everything in it felt quintessentially John, from John’s photographic art on the walls and the scent of leather and wax, to the bar fridge full of craft brews and the sofa that John and Sherlock had no doubt gloriously debauched over the last two years. John Watson had always seemed an intensely private person; that aspect of him reminded Greg of Mycroft. And like Mycroft, when John committed to someone, he held nothing back. Of course Sherlock was John’s best friend. Sherlock was John’s everything.

But here Greg stood, as John’s best man, good friend, and standard bearer for the man who had saved John’s life after he’d been shot, and made sure that John had survived to reach this happy day. He stood taller, proud to be all those things.

“Ready?”

“So ready.”

“Let’s go get you married then!”

 


	2. Vows

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> The ceremony and the wedding photos and a newlywed pash in public.

Greg opened the door into the boardroom of the Nicholas Building. Chairs had been set out across the room in what could only very generously be called rows. Some guests had tried to create straight lines with them; others – Molly, Sally and the people from the café – clustered into cheerful clumps.

John marched in, head held high, eyes straight ahead. Greg leaned over. “It’s your wedding not a muster for inspection,” he murmured.

John grimaced, a little sheepishly, until then huffed out a surprised breath when his sister wrapped her arms around him.

“Not too shabby, little bro,” she said, grinning madly. “For a hipster.”

He would have bristled but she gave him a big wet kiss on the cheek and hugged him tighter.

“So happy for you,” she murmured, then stood aside so his parents could get equal squishing time. As though they hadn’t already seen him a few hours ago.

*

The Watsons should have been in Melbourne 36 hours ago but a delay turned into a missed flight and everyone fretting they wouldn’t get here on time. Short notice, his father had grumbled, but they’d all made it. They’d all made the effort to be here for him.

Sherlock had spent the night at his brother’s house, though he wouldn’t admit it was because he was in a tizz about meeting the in-laws-to-be. John was in too much of a tizz himself to mind. It was a relief to have the space, just for one night, to pace, be cranky, not to worry that he was in an arse of a mood.

Five hours ago a taxi had dropped his mum and dad and sister at the flat, and they’d hugged him hard. Grinned at him. Looked pleased to see him.

John was pleased about that. A bit confused. He didn’t remember them all getting on so well.

Then, while the parents showered and changed, Harry had given him a large, flat parcel. Shaped like a portfolio folder.

“Your art,” she confessed.

“I thought you burned it.”

“Why the fuck would I do that? I mean. I know I wasn’t happy about it, the way it upset mum and dad.”

“Just them?”

“All right. And me. I know it was worse on you, but that doesn’t mean it wasn’t hard on us. What you were like when you came back. Nobody knew how to help.”

“Nobody could,” he admitted. “I just had to… work it through.”

“In Australia.”

“Apparently.”

“Well, it worked a treat. You look terrific. Did you see any of the family in Sydney?”

John had avoided his cousins in Sydney after the first uncomfortable meeting and jokes about Pommy Bastards coming over to Take Our Women. He’d pointed out he wasn’t interested in their women. Things had got awkward for a bit.

His Dad emerged from the bathroom first. “Nice place you’ve got here, son.  Fancy.” His Australian accent had faded, though it was still present in the flat vowels and occasional tendency to run all the words together. _Niceplace youvegothereson._

Criticism or not? But, you know, fuck it. John Watson had everything he wanted in life and had no need to be defensive about it.

“Yeah. It is a bit. Sherlock’s lab faces onto the garden. I have an art studio in the place we’re getting married.”

“I’m glad you’re still doing that. Seemed to help you when you came home. Is that one of yours?” Mr Watson nodded at the portrait of Sherlock he’d done, made of the waterwall and the Leonard French ceiling.

“Yeah.”

His father nodded, and hugged him. Then his mum fluttered out, asking which bag her make-up was in, stopping to hug him. So much hugging. Not the family habit, except suddenly it seemed it was. “You look so well, darling. Honestly. You look so happy. I’m so happy for you.” She was weepy.

“I am happy,” John said, and he realised at last how unhappy he’d been when he’d last seen them. How all the fractiousness and lack of understanding had been a failure of circumstances, and not solely theirs or his.

Days long gone and far away. Now he was an Australian citizen, thanks to his Sydney-born dad, and he lived in the Land Down Under, where turning his life upside down had been the absolutely best thing he’d ever done.

Greg arrived then. “I’ll come back for you guys when I’ve got John sorted. John, Edie Murray says she’ll catch up with you at the studio, okay?”

John hugged his family goodbye and dashed off with Greg so he could change at the studio.

*

Everyone was smiling at him, and John managed to smile back. He didn’t know why he felt so jittery. He was exactly where he wanted to be, and his family had made it in time to support him. The celebrant was smiling encouragingly.

Greg disappeared to fetch John’s groom.

The moment the door opened, all John’s tension fell away.

Sherlock’s hair fell slightly over his forehead in the way it never usually did away from home, but exactly how John loved it. Sherlock was so handsome in his suit, his grey eyes bright with warmth and welcome.

_I missed him. One night away, the first time since we moved in together. I missed him. But here he is, and he’s going to marry me._

John smiled like the sun, and Sherlock lit up in the light of it, and John thought he saw Sherlock murmur _I do, oh god, I do._

John held out his hand and Sherlock strode through the room, oblivious to their guests, eyes only for his fiancé. Drawn like magnets, they held hands and beamed at each other and remembered to say their vows on cue.

“My life has been based on science and logic,” said Sherlock, holding John’s hands and looking into his eyes with such intensity that it seemed he wanted to build a direct channel of feeling between them. “Through John I have found my life’s work of deduction and consulting detective work. Yet it would mean nothing if not for love. My love for John, and his for me, give me assurance that there is goodness in the world. Love is extra. John’s presence in my life is an embellishment of it, not a condition, and surely it is only goodness that gives extras. John is the embodiment of all the good in my life, and my vow is that every day, I will endeavour to give that goodness back to him in equal or surpassing measure.”

John’s vow was less floridly spoken. He was the kind of man to demonstrate more than say, and so he made coffee and made art and made love to express that love.

But he had found his words.

“I thought I’d seen the world, but you open up new ways of seeing. New worlds. Every day, you make the world fresh again. You make me excited to share it with you, to learn about it, about you, and about myself. I’m so glad I finally found the courage to talk to you that day at the café. I’m so glad you’re here with me today. I’m so happy we’ll discover the world and each other again and again every day for the rest of our lives. I love you anew every single morning, and will for all our lives.”

Sherlock and John both declared their _I Do, oh God, I do_ and they kissed and kissed, then laughed and cried and kissed, too full up with joy for more sober celebration.

Mycroft and Greg, both crying and laughing and kissing too, ushered downstairs, the guests all following behind. Irene’s fashion photographer friend Norton led the small crowd through all the best alleyways for wedding photos by the street art, beside the street furniture, around the old buildings and quirky new architecture until and at last they arrived at the rooftop garden for a barbeque reception.

The guests kept themselves busy while Mrs Hudson stoked up the barbie and Mycroft and Greg went on a groom hunt.

They found the wayward pair by following the cheering of the crowd in front of Flinders Street Station, and found the newlyweds enjoying a fabulous just-married pash under the clocks

“Come and see to your guests,” Mycroft urged them, “You show-offs.” You couldn’t tell he was chiding them because of his smile.

“Mrs H. made a brilliant pav for the occasion,” Greg added. He didn’t know precisely why both men flushed and laughed and pashed again, but he had good instincts. They looked just like Mycroft did whenever red ribbons were mentioned. Or worn.

“Come on, you dags. Let’s go and cut your sexy wedding pav.”

Holding hands, delighted with each other and the world, Mr and Mr Watson-Holmes allowed their groomsmen to lead them back to the party.


	3. Ghost at the Feast

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Speeches, toasts, and an unexpected guest.

The gates to the rooftop garden were wide open and the small but enthusiastic group of guests, alerted by a text from Greg, had formed an honour guard to welcome the wayward grooms to their own party. Mrs Hudson and Dimitri. Violet, Molly and Sally. Mike Stamford and Angelo. Mary and James. The Watsons. Edie Murray. They threw bio-degradable petals and cheered the arrival of the Mister and Mister.

Champagne was poured and Mycroft gave a best man speech.

“When Sherlock was eleven years old he announced to the household that he would never marry, because girls weren’t as pretty as boys, and boys were all dull.”

Sherlock clutched John’s hand and rolled his eyes.

“When he was eighteen, Sherlock restated his intention to remain a bachelor on the logic that he didn’t have the time and in any case, boys were still all very dull.”

Sherlock snorted, but still held onto John’s hand.

“Then three years ago, Sherlock came to me in my studio one evening and said to me: the barista here. He’s an interesting fellow. What’s his name? John Watson, I told him.  Why? I asked, because it’s an older brother’s prerogative to be nosy.”

Sherlock snorted again, but he was grinning too, his shoulder pressed against John’s. John, laughing, raised Sherlock’s hand to kiss his knuckles, moustache brushing over the skin.

“No reason, said Sherlock. It took him another six weeks to actually start a conversation with this barista, John Watson, whom he clearly considered both pretty and not at all dull.”

Laughter. Sherlock ducked his head to hide either a blush or annoyance. John bumped his nose against Sherlock’s cheek, kissed it, then puckered up as Sherlock decided to ignore Mycroft in favour of kissing his husband.

“Once they got started, however,” Mycroft continued, “There was no stopping them. And here we are, Sherlock and his husband, John Watson. A man of honour and merit. Sherlock has never needed my opinion or approval, but I’d like to take this opportunity to say, John, that you are indeed a man worthy of my singular and exceptional little brother. It daily brings me joy to see the joy you bring him, and he to you. Welcome officially to our family, which you’ve been part of these three years. May all your days be bright, joyful, and exceptionally well groomed.”

Cheers, laughter, the clinking of glasses. Sherlock’s expression was disarmingly touched, almost confused at the tenderness in his brother’s voice. Greg took up Mycroft’s glass so that his gloriously sentimental husband could enfold Sherlock in a tight brotherly hug, and then John.

Greg handed the glass and a clean silk handkerchief to Mycroft before taking on his own best man duties.

“John Watson. What can we say?” he said. “A man of impeccable style. A barista that other baristas strive and fail to emulate. A man of character, integrity, and expensive moustache wax.”

John laughed and Sherlock whispered something obviously wicked in his ear and they kissed.

Greg sobered. “Today I stand not only for myself as John’s friend, but for his old friend, Bill Murray, who first promised to be John’s best man. Bill never made it home, but because of him, John is here. So first I’d like to raise a glass to him, and to his sister Edie who came from Edinburgh so that I could wear these medals on Bill’s behalf.”

“To Bill,” they said, and John blinked back tears. Sherlock raised his glass to Edie _.  I owe Bill so much_ , he’d said to her when they’d met. _I am sorry for your loss._

“And now here’s our barista, our John Watson, who found his soul mate in Sherlock Holmes. These two men have brought their exceptional gifts of making coffee and solving mysteries to our city, and Melbourne will be forever grateful. More importantly, they brought their gifts to each other. Nobody could see John and Sherlock together and fail to see how well they fit. I came to know them both separately, and each on his own is formidable. Together they are an example of friendship and love, a great working partnership, and, it has to be said, excellent use of hair products.”

More laughter. Mrs Hudson dabbed at her eyes. Dimitri hugged her.

“When I first knew John – and not everyone knows this – he created digital art that expressed for him some of the difficult times he’d experienced. These days, he makes pictures of the things that he loves. The people that he loves. It is such a wonderful thing, to see the deep contentment he has in his life, and the happiness he’s brought to Sherlock, too.  May it ever be thus.”

More toasts, more cheers, more dabbing of eyes (Sherlock too, and John, not just Mrs Hudson).

Sherlock rose and thanked the groomsmen while John held his hand. And John rose and thanked Edie and his family, while Sherlock held his hand.

And then John and Sherlock cut the wedding pavlova and fed each other the traditional first bites (and Greg and Mycroft thought it hilarious that both men shifted oddly while doing so, and blushed, then laughed. Because apparently pavlova was a _thing_ with them.)

And then the Captains kitchen staff, directed by Mrs Hudson, unveiled the barbeque lunch.

It was Dimitri who saw the straggler arrive at the gates. A tall man, with a serious face, who had listened to the speeches from behind a garden tub of bay trees and rosemary bushes and other herbs belonging to a city restaurateur.

“You know the boys?” Dimitri asked.

The man pursed his lips. “I’m his father.” He nodded at Sherlock. Then at Mycroft.  “Their father.”


	4. Bound for Botany Bay

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> The unexpected visitor to the wedding reception is only half sure why he's here. Luckily, there are no-nonsense people around to help him see straight.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> A galah is an idiot.  
> The title comes from the old convict song, [ "Botany Bay"](http://folkstream.com/010.html).  
> My thanks to Winklepicker for all the Greek terms of endearment.

Dimitri Panopoulas was exactly zero kinds of idiot. He signalled rapidly to his lady love and turned back to the Unexpected Mr Holmes.

“You missed the ceremony,” Dimitri said, as neutrally as possible, stalling for time.

“The flight was delayed,” Mr Holmes Senior said with a crisp scowl, “And it took me all morning to find out where you’d all gone. I wasn’t able to find the correct name of the church for the ceremony. Nicholas, I thought.”

“No church,” said Mrs Hudson as she materialised at her wise boyfriend’s side. “And it was a private ceremony. And you are….?”

“This is Sherlock and Mycroft’s father, _ayapi mou_ ,” Dimitri said. (Weddings made him sentimental and he’d been calling Martha ‘my love’ and _koukla_ [doll] all day.)

Martha Hudson’s right eyebrow rose and arched and stayed there.

“Oh,” she said. Then that eyebrow came in for a landing and set in a line with the other, and even imperious Mr Holmes Senior paused at the hard look she gave him.

“And how may we help you, Mr Holmes?” Her question had all the surface manners of a person well used to dealing with customers, and all the underlying steeliness of someone used to dealing with those who became repugnant at short notice.

“I would like to see my sons.”

“A bit late now, don’t you think?” she asked, acerbic. She’d toss him out on his ear if she had to, rather than let him spoil their day.

Mr Holmes Senior looked suddenly sad. “I expect so,” he said. He smiled crookedly. “You remind me of my late mother-in-law.”

“Is that meant to be disarming?” she asked.

His crooked smile grew more wry. “No.” He sighed and looked past her shoulder at the two men and their partners. A ridiculous pop song was playing and the sons he’d known as dour and unhappy young men were grinning like idiots and dancing with their respective husbands.

 _I-I-I-I-I I'm hooked on a feeling_  
_I'm high on believing_  
_That you're in love with me_

A heavy set Italian man was acting as DJ and hooting his encouragement as the men danced, flushed and laughing and singing.

“Are they happy?” Mr Holmes Senior asked Mrs Hudson.

“You can see for yourself that they are.” _What a galah,_ was the unmistakable subtext.

He nodded. Yes. He could see that for himself.

“I had such ambitions for them,” he said softly. “I never thought they’d abandon all their prospects to come here. To stay _here_.”

“You’re a dill,” Mrs Hudson told him sternly.

“A drongo,” Dimitri added for emphasis.

“What ambitions could you have had for them that they haven’t exceeded?” Mrs Hudson demanded.

“Oh, I don’t know,” he said almost wistfully. “Wealth. Power. Influence.”

“Not happiness?”

“Of course.”

“Well here they are, happy,” Mrs Hudson said. “With as much wealth as they need to be comfortable. With as much power as is good for them with stimulating work they love and are fulfilled by doing. With as much influence as is healthy. They’re respected, their expertise is sought and does good. They’re loved by their friends, and even their clients, and by men who make them laugh. What other ambitions for your children could a parent possibly have that make any sense?”

Mr Holmes Senior’s pale blue eyes were strangely luminous, as though sorrow haunted them.

“A mother to have seen them grow,” he said quietly. “The last time I saw Sherlock smile like that, it was his seventh birthday. Leaona had bought him a chemist set and spent the day helping him do experiments. Two days later she was dead. Aneurysm. At work.”

Mrs Hudson stared at the man, wide-eyed.

“I think I last saw Mycroft smile was when he was accepted to study here in Australia. That was nothing like this, though. That was satisfaction, I think. This. This is. Is.”

“Joy,” she said.

“Deep,” he amended.

“Mr Holmes, why are you here?”

“Because I check on them, you know. And I found out last week that Mycroft had married his shoemaker boyfriend who I thought would never last the distance, and that Sherlock was going to marry a man who makes coffee for a living. And I couldn’t believe that they had _settled_. For _that_.”

Mrs Hudson opened her mouth to tell Mr Holmes once more that he was an idiot.

“I’m an idiot,” said Mr Holmes. He blinked. He frowned.

“Leaona was working as a barmaid when I met her. Australians in London often worked in hospitality. But she was a chemist, making use of her time and earning pocket money, she said, before she began her Masters at Oxford.”

“Their mother was Australian?”

“Yes. She’d lost her accent by the time Mycroft was born. She adored them, but she hated having to stay at home. She went back to work as soon as she could after they were born. She said. She always said. They would be happier with a happy mother that worked, than an unhappy one on tap at home.”

Dimitri thought it about time he got this poor bastard a drink. “Back in a moment, _koukla_ ,” he said.

Mrs Hudson touched Mr Holmes’s elbow. “SO why are you really here?”

“I thought it was to prove a point,” said Mr Holmes sadly. “I don’t think the point I’ve made is the one I planned.”

“You should go to them,” said Mrs Hudson. “Wish them well.”

“I don’t believe I’ve made myself the father they’d welcome.”

“You know,” said a new voice, “There’s this thing about Australia. White people came here, as convict or settlers, to break free of old things.”

Mr Holmes found himself looking into the clear brown eyes of his eldest son in law. The shoemaker. Greg Lestrade, brought over by a quiet word from Dimitri Panopoulas.

“That’s what my sons did,” Mr Holmes aid.

“So they did. You could too, you know.”

Mr Holmes made a half-hearted scoffing noise.

“The curse and hope of convict Australia,” continued Greg, “was that people were sent for penance and punishment, and when their time was done they remade themselves.”

“Did they now?”

“Do you know who Edward Oxford was?”

“That idiot boy who tried to assassinate Queen Victoria in 1840,” said Mr Holmes immediately. “Was sent to an asylum.”

“Yep. Came here to Melbourne twenty odd years later. Got married, became a good citizen. More or less.”

“I see.”

“Do you?”

“You suggest that… who I have been. Does not have to be. Who I continue to be.”

“Yep.”

“Why on earth would they believe that of me?”

“They did it for themselves, didn’t they? Mycroft and Sherlock. Came here, escape or penance or whatever you want to call it. And they shook off whatever that past was and made themselves free. They became themselves. Their whole selves.”

Mr Holmes cocked an eyebrow at him. “You’re not a simple cobbler, are you?”

“Nah, mate. I’m a complex cobbler who loves your eldest boy with every breath. And that over there is a master barista who served his country and paid for it. Who is brilliant at what he does in a city that respects that kind of skill. And who now helps your youngest boy solve mysteries and bring hope and comfort to people who need it. Who loves your boy like he’s made of magic.”

Mr Holmes swallowed.

Dimitri handed him a long-necked bottle of craft beer.

“Get that in ya,” he advised.

Mr Holmes got that in him and found it did the world of good.

“Want to say hi to your sons?” Greg offered.

“And get to know my in-laws,” Mr Holmes agreed. “And please. Call me Sherrinford.”

“You know you’re going to get called Sherri within a day, don’t ya?” asked Dimitri.

“Leaona used to call me Shez,” he confessed with a slight wince.

“Aussies, eh?” laughed Dimitri. He leaned over to kiss Mrs Hudson on the cheek. “Come _kottaki mou,_ it’s time to replenish the barbeque.”

“My little _chicken_?” she asked.

“Do you prefer _matia mou? My eyes,_ my love.”

“I don’t mind that,” she conceded.

Greg Lestrade-Holmes waved across the rooftop garden to his husband, who’d been watching them both with a dark frown for some minutes. Greg grinned and nodded reassuringly. Mycroft, placing trust in his husband, let his scowl ease.

Sherrinford Holmes heard his youngest boy say in a voice tight with anxiety: “John. It seems. I must introduce you to. To my father.”

And Sherlock’s husband gave Sherrinford Holmes a look that said _: If you’ve come to hurt my man, you’ll have to deal with me._ A look not unlike that he’d recently received from the cobbler.

Leaona would have liked these boys, Sherrinford Holmes decided. The pang of missing her was the sharpest it had been since her loss.

And then he set himself to the long held ambition of new Australians, no matter how they came to be here.

_Start afresh. Break free. Become yourself._


	5. Fathers and Sons

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Mr Holmes Sr speaks to his sons, and meets John's father. They talk about their boys.

“Mr Holmes,” said Sherrinford Holmes’s newest son-in-law in a neutral tone. The man’s eyes were sharp, his mouth a firm line under that waxed moustache.

_My son married a dandy._

But there was something in that sharp blue gaze that did not speak of foppishness or fancy. Confidence was there, yes, and a surprising level of cool charisma.

“Mr Watson,” said Sherrinford with a nod, holding out a hand.

“Mr Watson-Holmes,” the man corrected him with a tiny smile, “But please. Call me John.”

John Watson-Holmes’s handshake was firm but not overbearing.  A good handshake.  “Call me Sherrinford.”

“Why are you here?” demanded Sherlock.

Sherrinford held his hand out to his youngest. “To wish you well.”

Sherlock stared at the extended hand. Sherrinford wondered if John Watson-Holmes would nudge Sherlock into doing the polite thing, but he only stood close to Sherlock, a hand around Sherlock’s waist, providing support.

Sherlock finally took his father’s hand and shook it briefly before letting go. “You want to wish me well?”

“I do,” said Sherrinford. He looked to Mycroft, hovering nearby with an expression more cynical, less puzzled, than Sherlock’s. “I want to wish both of you well.”

Gregory Lestrade-Holmes, like John, stood supportively close to his husband and encouraged him without saying much. From a sudden sideways glance Mycroft gave Greg, Sherrinford wondered if the son-in-law was patting Mycroft’s back.

“Thank you,” said Mycroft primly. If anyone was a dandy, Sherrinford supposed it was Mycroft, who was supposed to have been a government minister, or the head of a department, or an ambassador to somewhere important by now.

“I wish. I wish that your mother had lived to see this.”

“This?”

“The two of you. Her boys. Married.” He swallowed. “Happy.”

Mycroft’s coldness evaporated suddenly, and he blinked rapidly. He smiled uncertainly, cynicism clinging still. “She would have approved, do you think?” A note of hope was in his voice.

“Leaona would have approved of anything that made you smile like you were smiling when I arrived. Dancing with your… your husband. Even to such a silly song.”

“That’s the song John and I first danced to,” interjected Sherlock suddenly, cross.

“Oh.”

“On a rooftop, just over there.” He nodded across to the city somewhere. “It was very romantic.” He sounded both defiant and defensive.

John Watson-Holmes squeezed his arm around Sherlock’s waist and grinned up at Sherlock with devastating affection. “It was romantic.”

Sherrinford watched his boy’s discomfort melt away under that loving gaze. No sharpness there in John’s blue eyes, and none at all in Sherlock’s grey ones that were so like his mother’s. Sherlock had always been such an anxious boy in company, but here with his husband he seemed completely at home in his own skin.

Mycroft, always more self-possessed than Sherlock, was likewise much more relaxed than Sherrinford had ever known him. Mycroft’s fingers were entwined with Greg’s. He leaned slightly into Greg’s arm. The boy who’d left London to study in Australia would never have shown even so slight a dependence on someone else. That brittle, lonely boy was long gone.

 _They are so in love_ , Sherrinford thought. And he thought, _I’m not welcome here_. And he thought, _well, it’s hardly surprising_.

He’d come a long way on an uncomfortable and delayed flight just to realise what he’d already known in London. His sons were both much happier without him or his notions of what should have made them successful.

“I should g-“ he began.

“Oh, hello! It’s you!”

He turned to find a vaguely familiar woman beaming at him.

“I didn’t know you were coming to the wedding!” she continued, “What a shame you missed the ceremony. It was lovely! Harry’s filmed it all on her phone, so you could watch that later, if you like.”

“Ah… that might be… It’s… Fiona, isn’t it?”

“That’s right. Fiona Watson. John’s mother.” She beamed more widely and gestured to a man standing nearby. “Jack! Jack, this is the fellow I was talking to you about, who helped me when I lost my way at Changi Airport. I’m so sorry, I didn’t catch your name at the time…”

“Sherrinford,” said Sherrinford, bemused.

“Sherrinford, hello! And our daughter Harry.”

The daughter waved vaguely from behind a phone she was using to take photographs of the guests.

“So which groom do you know? Did you serve with John?” asked Jack Watson, the flat Australian vowels still audible underneath his accent. “No, wait. You must be a relative of Sherlock’s. You’ve got that Holmes look about you.”

Mrs Hudson took this opportune moment to thrust an empty plate and a glass of champagne into Sherrinford’s hands.

“Wedding lunch is that way.” She nodded towards a table laden with food, “John, I think Mike Stamford is about to put on an ABBA medley if nobody stops him.”

“Why would anybody stop him?” demanded Jack Watson.

“You Australians and your unfathomable love affair with ABBA,’ said Mycroft, rolling his eyes.

“You love ABBA,” Greg teased him. “I converted you, remember?”

“So you did,” conceded Mycroft with a soft smile. “You and your rendition of _Dancing Queen_.”

And the next moment, his sons and their husbands had disappeared, leaving Sherrinford with an empty plate and an empty glass, because he’s downed the contents in a swallow.

Sherrinford found Jack Watson still at his elbow.

“You’re their Dad, aren’t you?” said Jack.

“Yes.”

“Bloody oath,” said Jack. “John wrote that things were a bit strained between you and Sherlock.”

“Yes.”

“He didn’t say why.”

“Ah.”

“Want a beer?”

“I’d rather a scotch.”

“I think Angelo’s got some behind the table. Come on.”

The two men retreated with tumblers of scotch, and Sherrinford was grateful that Jack didn’t ask any more questions. He was less grateful that, instead, he talked.

“Things were strained with John too, for a long time. He served in Afghanistan. I don’t know if you know that.”

“No.”

“Invalided out. His best friend was killed while he was recuperating. It was tough on him.”

Sherrinford sipped scotch.

“He struggled a lot, after he came home. We didn’t know how to help him. He was angry a lot. Depressed. Had very dark thoughts, I think. It was upsetting to see it, when he tried to express himself with it. We love him, but we weren’t helping him. Then he packed up and left one day, and came here.”

Another sip. Jack kept talking.

“And I look at him now and I think, there’s my son again. There’s my boy. We lost him for a while. I was afraid he was gone for good. But here he is. He dresses differently, and he still limps in the cold, and god, that moustache! But he’s here. My son, John Hamish Watson, is back in the world. And I think a lot of that is to do with your son, so I’m glad John came here and met him. Your Sherlock is a fine man.”

Sherrinford rolled the scotch around in the glass and watched John Watson-Holmes murmuring something into Sherlock’s ear.

“My son Sherlock,” said Sherrinford after a moment, “Was desperately unhappy. Dangerously unhappy. I feared for him. He became involved in something… unhealthy.”

“John wrote to us about the cabbie murders. How he’d solved them, but the cops wouldn’t listen.”

That was only part of it, but Sherrinford didn’t want to mention the rest. Flirting with drug use. The cocaine he’d found and flushed away before Sherlock could use it.

“He thinks I sent him here to fetch his brother home, because I thought the police were right. That’s not why I sent him here.” Sherrinford hadn’t believed Sherlock was a killer, despite that idiot policeman. It was in its way fortunate other murders had occurred once Sherlock left the country. It left his innocence in no doubt.

“I sent him here to keep him safe,” said Sherrinford.  “But he was supposed to come back. With or without Mycroft.” He'd already lost Mycroft by then, he knew. All the demands and lectures in the world hadn't changed that, and Sherrinford had lacked the wisdom to know how to make him return.

Sherrinford drank the rest of the scotch in a gulp. When he looked back across the gardens, he couldn’t see either of his sons and their partners.

“You say you have your boy back.”

 _Am I going to say this?_ Sherrinford wondered. _Am I really going to say this to a stranger?_

“I lost my sons years ago, when their mother died.”

His own fault of course. He’d determined to be terribly English about it all. He’d determined to make them hard and tough and to use their brains instead of their hearts, because where did that lead you except to heartbreak?

“These men here. They are their mother’s sons. They are who Leaona wanted them to be.”

_I should have told them that I love them. Just once_

Jack Watson turned out to have liberated the bottle of scotch from the drinks table. He splashed a large measure into Sherrinford’s empty tumbler.

“Who did she want them to be?” Jack asked.

“Good men.” He sipped again. “This is good scotch.”

“Not bad.”

“My sons are good men. Happy men.”

“I reckon they are.”

“And they’ve married good men.”

“Looks like.”

“Here’s to your son and mine,” said Sherrinford, raising his glass.

Jack clinked his own against it. “John and Sherlock.”


	6. The Shed

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Mycroft is taking a brief respite. He's definitely not hiding. Sherlock and John aren't hiding either. They're just enjoying a little man-time in the garden shed.

Greg lowered himself to the ground beside Mycroft, who was hiding behind one of the raised garden beds in the rooftop garden.

“Champagne for you love,” Greg said, handing Mycroft a glass and filling it from the bottle in his other hand. “Sally’s nicked the scotch. Looks like she’s conspiring with Angelo and Mike to introduce karaoke. Who put those clowns in charge of the music anyway?”

“You did,” Mycroft told him before downing the champagne in a gulp.

Greg laughed knowingly. “So I did, and here we go, Sally is channelling  Kate Ceberano. She does a great version of _Pash_.”

“Very much the theme song of the happy couple,” said Mycroft, holding his glass out. Greg refilled it and then sipped straight from the bottle while Mycroft downed that glass too.

“Sorry, babe,” said Greg with a sigh. “Seemed like a good idea to invite him in. He’d come all this way, and he seemed. Sad.”

Mycroft tipped his head back till it clunked on the garden bed. “You did the right thing.”

“Yet here you are sitting behind a herb garden, chugging champagne and hiding from your dad.”

“I’m not hiding.” At Greg’s arched eyebrow, Mycroft added, “Much.” He heaved another sigh. “I’m merely taking a brief respite to assimilate the sudden arrival of the paterfamilias without all the attendant shouting and cutting comments.”

Greg kissed Mycroft on the cheek, poured him another glass of champagne, then took his hand and kissed Mycroft’s fingers.

“I love you, husband,” he said, “And if you want him to go, I will take him by the elbow and escort him from the premises.”

Mycroft’s expression immediately softened at being called Husband. He lifted their joined hands and kissed Greg’s wrist.

“It’s fine. I just need a moment. Sherlock will too, I’m sure.”

“Oh, I expect him to be more than a moment.”

“Yes?”

“He and John disappeared ten minutes ago into the shed at the gate, where all the garden equipment is stored.”

“Sherlock’s in hiding too?”

Greg laughed. “I don’t think that’s precisely how I’d describe it. John grabbed a plate of wedding cake, took Sherlock by the hand, and snuck off with him. I’m pretty sure he locked the shed after them.”

“Wedding cake.”

“Yup.”

“Whose idea was the pavlova anyway?”

“They left that in Mrs H’s hands, and let’s just say that their passion for pavlova is something of an open secret that they think nobody else knows.”

“Ah, bless.”

Greg laughed and tugged Mycroft close. Mycroft leaned against his husband, fitting snugly under his arm. “I’m much too hot,” he said, suddenly.

“Yes, I have the hottest husband on this rooftop.” He leaned forward though, to allow Mycroft to remove his suit jacket and tie and to undo the top few buttons. “Oooh, now Hot Husbands come 58% hotter.”

Greg pulled Mycroft close again and they enjoyed a long slow pash as Sally finished the end of the Ceberano song and Molly insisted that she wanted to sing _Working Class Man_ , down to mimicking Jimmy Barnes’s gravelly voice.

Mycroft, fingers wrapped around Greg’s tie, insisted on the pash lasting half way through the next song too.

“Maybe they’re around…. Oh!”

Mycroft buried his face in Greg’s shoulder as Greg, the most unrepentant of husbands, grinned up at John Watson’s mother, his sister Harriet, and Sherrinford Holmes.

“It’s an Aussie tradition for the best man and the chief bridesmaid to hook up on the wedding day.”

Silence.

And then Mr Holmes Senior said, “It’s the tradition in England as well. I suppose the… ah… happy couple have… gone for a quiet. Talk. Somewhere?”

“Another fine wedding tradition,” snorted Harry Watson.

“Yep.”

“Mm.” Mr Holmes nodded. “Well. Ah. I suppose. Carry on?”

Harry’s snort of laughter grew louder, Mrs Watson giggled and was heard to say something like, ‘Newlyweds. They’re so adorable” and Mr Holmes withdrew silently and swiftly without further comment.

Mycroft was shaking in Greg’s arms. Laughing madly into the beautifully stitched shoulder of his husband’s suit.

“I believe it’s time for us to take the karaoke stand,” said Mycroft, rising and holding his hand out to Greg.

“ _You’re the One That I Want_?” suggested Greg.

“Only if I get to be Olivia Newton-John.”

“Of course.”

Holding hands, laughing, the went out to strut their gay, gay, gay musical selves to the wedding party, and buy the grooms a little more time in their garden shed.

*

In the loamy warmth of the Pop Up Garden shed, surrounded by potting mix and trowels and a shelf of seedlings, John Watson-Holmes was handfeeding his husband with bites of pavlova.

John was moaning softly at how lavishly Sherlock Holmes-Watson was sucking on his fingers, licking down to the web, fellating index and middle fingers like he might actually make those fingers come.

John’s jacket had been thrown over a low ladder. His braces were off his shoulder, his trousers unbuttoned and pushed down, his jocks too, and while Sherlock sucked John’s pavlova-sweet fingers, Sherlock was wanking his beloved brand new husband with gooey fingers, coated in the inappropriate yet effective lubricant of sticky pavlova filling and cream.

John’s hips were hitching and he pumped into Sherlock’s grip. He bit his lower lips and grunted soft in counterpoint with Sherlock’s moans around his fingers.

“I’m… I’m.. I’m…” John panted as he got close.

That’s when Sherlock sucked his mouth off John’s fingers with a pop. He leaned down and he continued sucking on his beloved’s thick, hot prick.

John went off like a rocket. He shoved his wet, just-sucked fingers into his own mouth to muffle his cries while Sherlock opened wide and deep and took him in. Sherlock’s hands were wrapped around John’s hips, his long fingers massaging the tightening muscles of that gorgeous arse, until John finished coming.

Sherlock sucked John clean and released his softening cock with a pop too.

He pushed John’s shirt up and kissed his belly a few times, because he liked John’s hairy belly a lot. Then he pulled up John’s jocks and trousers, neatly tucked in the shirt and did up the buttons, dabbed daintily at the corners of his mouth and reached for the bottle of champagne and took a long swallow of it.

“Told you we could do that without marking your suit,” said Sherlock smugly.

John was leaning against a the wall – mostly to stay upright despite his wobbly knees – and grinned at him in a besotted fashion.

“What about you?”

Sherlock spread his legs and they both inspected the bulge in his trousers. A damp circle was visible  near the buttons, on the left. Sherlock rose, rearranged his jacket, and they looked again.

“Nobody can see,” he decided.

“You don’t want me to…?”

Sherlock smiled at his husband from under his lashes, sultry. “I’m saving up for the honeymoon suite at the Langham.”

John’s own eyes went sultry too, and he leaned up to kiss his darling, who tasted of champagne, pavlova, and come.

“More champagne before we go out.”

They shared the bottle. Sherlock listened at the door.

“Karaoke. My god. Why did we put Greg in charge of the music?”

“Because he’s good at it. Molly singing Jimmy Barnes notwithstanding. Wait. Is that my mother singing _I Touch Myself_? Oh my god. Maybe we should stay in here.”

“It’s tempting. But they’ll have started wondering where we are. If we go back now, they’ll assume 'exciteable newlywed snogging', not 'pavlova blow jobs'.”

“Ready to face your dad again?”

“Pffft.”

“Fair enough.” John finished fixing his shirt, pulling his braces back up, twisting his moustache into shape and making sure no evidence of his just-married blow job marred the suit. Sherlock adjusted his wedding suit to conceal the evidence of his just-married arousal, breathed deeply to the count of ten until the hard-on subsided. Then John unlocked the door and they snuck back out of the shed, around the garden boxes and finally emerged looking well kissed and pleased with themselves.

Mr Holmes Senior was dancing with Harriet Watson. The sun was setting over the river and the gardens. Mr and Mrs Watson were singing _I Got You Babe_ , badly, but with gusto.

 “See,” Sherlock whispered to John, “They hardly missed us.” 


	7. The Slow Getaway

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> More dancing, a lot of flirting, many hugs, a Queen Bee, and then, at last, the deflowering can begin.

By the time the new husbands were ready to depart for their honeymoon, most of the pavlova had been eaten, Mr Holmes Senior had danced with all the women, Mrs Watson with all the men and, giggling a bit, with Molly. Greg and John had pinned Bill’s medals onto Edie’s dress now, and she danced with John in Bill’s honour, then with Sherlock, Greg and Mycroft in turn.

Mary Morstan regaled both sets of parents with slightly edited stories of how Sherlock and John and their private detective business had solved crimes, helped her win cases in court and provided her with an adorable dog while locking away a nasty neighbour.

Harry Watson flirted madly with Molly and then, when Sally Donovan loomed, flirted just as madly with her. The three of them were currently in a flirt-circle so intense and sexually charged that the Watsons Senior simultaneously refused to think about it and assumed Harry would be making her own sleeping arrangements for the evening.

Being high summer, even Mycroft had finally given in to the heat, removed his jacket and tie, and rolled up his sleeves. He and Greg danced. Sherrinford Holmes stared, not for the dancing, but for the tattoos. Greg’s elbow sported a cobweb, part of a motorbike and the words ‘rock and roll’ were visible on his left forearm, a guitar on his right wrist. More astonishing is the tattoo  of a robin and teacup he could see on his son’s right bicep. The boy who’d left London to study in Australia would never have dated a man covered in tattoos, let alone worn one of his own.

When the dance ended, their shirts damp-clingy with perspiration, Mr Holmes’s astonishment at the outlines of the tattoos over their hearts gave way to another wave of wistful acceptance. He could make out the shape of an umbrella over Greg Lestrade’s heart. Over Mycroft’s was a guitar. His son was a stranger to him, but a stranger who loved and was loved. Adored. There was Greg, kissing Mycroft’s fingers, and there was Mycroft, eyes sparkling with joy. The boy he used to be long ago.

Everything Sherrinford had ever hoped for Mycroft and Sherlock evaporated in the realisation that what he thought he’d wanted for them was actually for himself. A kind of substitute for love, as though they’d insulate the boys and him from their great loss. They’d never wanted power or wealth or influence, the way he’d perceived those things after Leaona had died.

That wise Mrs Hudson was right. Mycroft and Sherlock had just enough of those things for a good life, and they had love, too.  So much of it.

When it was time to leave, Sherlock impatiently chivvied his laughing husband to the lift to the car park with a squeeze of his bum. Attempts at a quick getaway were thwarted by everyone lining up for hugs.

Sherlock, who mostly wanted to be hugging his naked husband in their honeymoon suite, accepted each embrace with a quick squeeze and a ‘yes, thank you, goodbye’. His friends, knowing him well, and noticing how he kept grabbing John’s hand to lace their fingers together briefly between hugs, realised he was reaching the end of his ‘being among people who are not John’ tether. The whole ‘disappearing to the shed’ thing had not gone unnoticed either.

“Off you go,” Greg said, patting him on the back, “Go and deflower your husband.”

“Thank you,” said Sherlock in earnest relief, instead of denying it or arguing that they’d been regularly deflowering each other in various ways for years now.

The Watsons had all hugged him too, but one more itchingly necessary farewell was required.

Sherrinford Holmes had shaken hands solemnly with John and, with a sober and contrite nod, he placed a hand on Sherlock’s shoulder.

“I’m glad I came,” he said. He pulled Sherlock into a sudden embrace, hard and tight, like he used to when Sherlock was small. “It’s so good to see you happy,” said Sherrinford in a low voice, rough with emotion, while he held on. “You are so loved. Treasure it. Treasure him.”

Sherlock was surprised into hugging his father back, like he hadn’t since he was a boy.

“I will. I do.”

“Good.” Sherrinford stood back. “Off you go then.”

Off they at last went. Greg and Mycroft went down to the car they’d hired and drive the newlyweds to the Langham Hotel in Southbank.

Greg and Mycroft kept the farewells mercifully brief. The bags for tomorrow’s trip to Lorne were already in the honeymoon suite, and they had wedding guests to finish hosting, and also a small bet as to whether Molly, Sally and Harry Watson would go home together. (Mycroft said _No, they’re not drunk enough to be so blatant in front of Harry’s parents_ ; Greg said _, oh hell yes they will, drunk or no, did you see Sally’s strut?_ )

*****

Alone at last. The moment John and Sherlock entered their suite, Sherlock crowded John against the wall and kissed him like it was a fundamental requirement for survival.

John happily surrendered to Sherlock’s desperate hunger for him. He let Sherlock pin his wrists against the wall, and undulated his body and Sherlock’s when Sherlock ground against him. He tilted his chin up to let Sherlock suck red splotches against his throat and hooked a leg over Sherlock’s thigh so they could hump each other more effectively.

“Back in a minute,” Sherlock breathed hotly into John’s mouth.

And then he disappeared into the bathroom.

Dazed, achingly hard, grinning, John looked at the closed door and listened, but he couldn’t hear anything. HE straightened himself up a little and went to the window.

Their room looked over the Eureka Building next door. John’s grin grew wider, wondering if Sherlock realised what their view was yet.

“Sherlock!”

“One moment, John!”

“You should see the view!”

“One second!”

“You’ll like it.”

“It’s Southbank, John. Not that inter… oh.”

Sherlock came dashing back out and, as far as John could see, looking exactly as he had when he’d gone into the bathroom. Slightly neater, perhaps.

Sherlock was right next to him, arm around John’s waist, nose almost pressed to the window.

“The bees,” he breathed. The building opposite was decorated in giant golden bees. The Queen sat regally atop a white box of her colony, with a few others scattered over the face of the building.

“I asked for a room where we could see them.”

“You are the very best of husbands, John Watson-Holmes.”

“I aim to be,” said John, turning to take Sherlock in his arms. “Now. Where were we?”

They kissed, slow and sensuous. John slipped his arms around Sherlock’s waist. He plucked Sherlock’s shirt out of his waistband and rubbed his fingers along Sherlock’s ribs. One hand went up his smooth back.

Halted.

“Ooooh,” he breathed.

“There’s more,” whispered Sherlock.

Leaving one hand on the discovery under Sherlock’s shirt, John ran his other hand down, dipped under the waistband, slid further down.

“Lacy,” he said. His fingers wriggled further down. “Silky.”

“And white,” said Sherlock with a wiggle. “It is, after all, our wedding night.”

John tugged Sherlock closer, nuzzled his throat, mouthed down until he found Sherlock’s nipple through the shirt; through the tiny triangle of white silk bra underneath, and suckled it through the cloth until Sherlock’s wriggle turned into a writhe.

“You, Sherlock Holmes-Watson, are the very best of husbands,” he asserted, then he mouthed and suckled on the other nipple.

Sherlock’s writhe turned into arching and a wanton moan, and so John carefully guided his husband backwards and then lifted him and deposited him onto the bed.

“Are you going to deflower me, John?” asked Sherlock from under long lashes, kiss-blushed lips that were parted and panting.

John grinned wolfishly. “Oh yes, I am.”

“Oh good,” said Sherlock, with an answering grin, and he spread his arms wide and waited for the deflowering to begin.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> [The Eureka Building's bees.](https://www.onlymelbourne.com.au/queen-bee-eureka-tower)


	8. The Deflowering

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> It's the wedding night. Silky panties, moustaches, and a consummation devoutly to be wished for.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Note the rating change from Mature to Explicit.

John regarded the beautiful man splayed wantonly on the bed with a stirring combination of wonder, delight, possessiveness, yearning, satisfaction and bright-sparking lust. What a glory his Sherlock was.

John remembered how brilliant and how awkward Sherlock had been when they first met. All that stumble-tongued anxiety was long gone. John had so much affection for that sweetly uncertain man he’d first met, but he didn’t miss him. This Sherlock – the one so confident in John’s presence, so certain he was loved, so at home in his own skin – made John feel like the luckiest man in creation. That old Sherlock had been filled with hurt, and accepting of, though not inured to, rejection.  That Sherlock hadn’t felt like he fitted in the world, and that the world would never let him try.

John, who’d made his own peace with not being a shape that fit into the world very easily, had quickly found he fitted perfectly with Sherlock’s unique way of being. What a relief, what a rare joy, what sheer perfection, that Sherlock thought he fit too.

Sherlock raised an eyebrow at John from the bed.

“Tell me what you’re thinking,” he said.

“Can’t you guess?”

“I never guess.”

John smiled. “I’m thinking how much I love you. I’m thinking how happy I am we found each other. I’m thinking about whether I’m going to suck you off through those panties I know you’re wearing before or after I have my wicked way with you.”

“You could try both. I’m very horny.”

John placed a hand on Sherlock’s ankle and slowly dragged his fingers over the cloth: over shin and knee, thigh and hip. (Sherlock flexed underneath the sliding fingers, seeking more pressure than John was giving, wanting touch, but enjoying this all the same.)

John’s fingers walked from Sherlock’s belly, over his sternum, up his throat to his lips. John’s thumb brushed firmly against Sherlock’s lower lip, before John bent to kiss him. As they kissed, John’s fingers slipped down over Sherlock’s throat again. He loosened Sherlock’s already loose tie, pulled it free, and then John flicked the tip of his tongue against Sherlock’s with every button he flicked open, from collar to hem, which he untucked with a slow drag, fingers against Sherlock’s belly.

Sherlock moaned a protest when John pulled away, but then grinned with shining eyes as John ran his gaze over Sherlock’s body.

“Aren’t you a gorgeous thing,” John observed, pushing Sherlock’s shirt wide.

Underneath, a wee scrap of a teeny silk bra, two soft triangles trimmed in lace, held together with slender white ribbon around his ribs, over his shoulders.

John rubbed his thumb softly over the centre of one triangle. The pebbling and peaking of the nipple underneath showed clearly through the silk. Slowly, head tilted to one side, John teased the other nipple to hardness beneath the silk.

Sherlock watched John’s hands on him, licked and bit his lower lip. He seemed about to say something, so John soft-pinched both nubs, and speech was thwarted into a moaning gasp, and Sherlock’s hips lifted off the bed.

John, still in his suit, in his beautiful patinaed shoes, knelt astride Sherlock’s hips, splayed his hands around Sherlock’s ribs and bent his head to lip and nibble and suckle at his husband’s lovely nips beneath his delicious tiny bra.

Sherlock fisted his hands in the sheets and arched, pushing his chest into John’s mouth. John sucked harder, scraped his teeth over the silk so it pushed hard-soft over Sherlock’s skin. Beneath him, Sherlock arched and wriggled. John rolled his hips, feeling the heat of Sherlock’s erection between his own legs.

When Sherlock released the sheets so he could clasp John and pull him closer, John let him, and mouthed the now sodden silk more wantonly, then suddenly took Sherlock’s hands and pushed them up again. He grinned down at Sherlock and ground his hips down.

Then he leaned down again, dragged the scraps of silk out of the way with his teeth and licked-nibbled-sucked at Sherlock’s bared nipples, nudging his moustache against the flushed, sensitive skin (just the way Sherlock loved it) until Sherlock was writing and gasping and pushing up into John’s mouth again.

John surged up to kiss him again, deep, wet, hungry kisses, before he sat up and scooted back along Sherlock’s thighs.

“What’s down here, hmm?” he teased, unfastening Sherlock’s belt, button and zip. He licked his thumb wet and circled it over the crown of Sherlock’s thick, leaking cock, peeking over the top of the white silk panties, the lace trim and little bow plastered stickily to Sherlock’s frenulum.

John raised himself up on his knees briefly, so that he could pull Sherlock’s trousers down to his thighs. The white lingerie was cut high, showing off Sherlock’s lean thighs. The cloth bulged with Sherlock’s tightening balls, with the line of his thick erection.

“You’re so pretty,” breathed John, before he scooted back a little further and bent down again, to lick at the head of Sherlock’s cock, then down the silk-encased length of him. John nuzzled at Sherlock’s balls, further down between his thighs, up again, suckling the cloth wet and clinging. Sherlock tried to spread his legs, but they were trapped by his trousers around his knees and by John sitting lightly on his shins.

Finally, John pulled the panties to one side, letting Sherlock’s cock spring free, and he swallowed it down and licked and sucked, lips and moustache and tongue against his prick driving Sherlock into a frenzy, until with a shout he bucked his hips and came. And came. And came. By the time he subsided into a mess of whimpering, overstimulated pleasure, John had stopped sucking and was kissing his hot skin all up the underside and over the crown of his cock.

Sherlock looked down the length of his own body with a smug, sated expression. He still wore his wedding suit and shoes. His lingerie was askew and soaking wet, but still on. He looked thoroughly debauched and absolutely delighted with the fact.

John looked just as pleased with himself as he rose off the bed.

“Still horny, beautiful?”

“The night is young,” said Sherlock, “And you haven’t fucked me yet.”

John took Sherlock’s shoes off at last, and his socks. He pulled Sherlock’s perfectly tailored trousers off too. He took Sherlock’s hands and pulled him into a sitting position so he could divest his husband of coat and shirt, then lowered him back to the bed, still in those pretty lacies.

In no especial hurry, John then stripped himself. Shoes and socks. Coat and suspenders and shirt. Belt and the trousers tented and spot-damp. He pulled his boxers off too, making his erection bob.

Then he remembered he hadn’t unpacked the toiletries yet.

He fondled Sherlock’s softened cock through the panties, then dropped a kiss on his belly. Then he walked naked across the room and squatted to open his bag.

“The view’s lovely,” said Sherlock dreamily, “However…”

John straightened and bent from the hips instead of the knees to give Sherlock a better view of his arse, then returned to the bed with the bottle of lube.

Sherlock seized John’s left hand while John lubed him up with the right. He kissed all of John’s fingers and his palm, he mouthed at John’s fingers, and sucked on them, then wrapped his mouth around the wedding ring and revelled in the feel and taste of the metal on his tongue. All this while John pulled the panties to one side and wriggled his clever fingers between Sherlock’s cheeks, into the tight furl.

“Now, now, now” murmured Sherlock, reaching for John’s shoulders.

John’s thighs, snugged up close to Sherlock’s bum, pushed Sherlock’s legs wide. He slid his hands under Sherlock’s backside, squeezed, then pulled the panties down until the band was trapped at the top of Sherlock’s thighs. The cloth pulled taut over Sherlock’s cock, which was beginning to thicken again.

“I love you,” John breathed, lifting Sherlock’s legs high, pushing in. “God, I love you.” He pushed the panties till they were around Sherlock’s ankles then. When Sherlock rested his calves on John’s shoulders, his panty-cuffed ankles were behind John’s head. His knees were splayed. His hands were over John’s, holding them hard against his chest.

John rolled his hips. Sherlock arched and moved to meet him.

“Fucking beautiful,” said John, “I love fucking you like this.”

Sherlock spread his legs wider, pushed his nipples up into John’s palms, pushed John’s hands down against them, pushed his hips up. “Fuck…me…”

John did, rocking into Sherlock’s body while Sherlock writhed and arched and encouraged with gasps and mewls and ‘fuck me’ and, as John’s pace quickened, with ‘yes’ and ‘husband’.

The latter did it, with John suddenly pounding hard, his hands slipping down to Sherlock’s hips to hold him at a better angle as he thrust and swore and fucked his husband with joyous abandon, until he came with a long shout.

John’s hips rocked a few more times, before he slowly withdrew and collapsed sideways on the bed. Both of them were panting, and Sherlock was mostly hard again.

John slid his hands down over Sherlock’s belly to his groin and cupped Sherlock’s eager cock. He huffed a happy laugh and rolled onto his side until he could kiss Sherlock again.

Sherlock wrapped his arms around John and lipped at his moustache, then tilted his head back so John could nuzzle his throat while John’s hands worked magic on his ever-hardening cock.

Then John’s hand was sliding up and down his cock, wanking him, and John was kissing him and murmuring against his lips: “You’re mine, you gorgeous thing, mine, my husband, mine, for always and ever, God, you’re perfect, you’re amazing, you’re everything, everything I never needed, ever wanted _, oh oh_ , you feel good in my hand, you feel good, you’re perfect, my husband, fucking beautiful, that’s it…” as Sherlock began to _oh oh oh oh oh_ and thrust into the circle of his palm, “That’s it, fuck yes, come for me, come on me, that’s it, right on me, I’m yours, you’re mine, fuck, yeah…” as Sherlock cried out John’s name and came all over both their bellies and John’s hand.

The level of smugness in the honeymoon suite rose about 200 percent and John pressed sleepy, lazy kisses all over Sherlock’s face, his sticky hand on Sherlock’s peachy arse. Sherlock lay in his arms, relaxed as a wet noodle, smugness vying with a beatific smile.


	9. The Happiest Men in the World

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> A little post-coital reflection on family, friends, and how far they've come.

Eventually they subsided into a sticky cuddle, too content to seek the shower yet. Sherlock wriggled to get closer to John and John wrapped his arms tighter around Sherlock and buried his nose in Sherlock’s hair.

They dozed for a while, and woke to share more languid kisses, then managed to get into the shower and lathered each other up and called each other Husband. Wrapped in soft bathrobes after, Sherlock sat against the headboard and John made himself comfortable against Sherlock’s chest. He held Sherlock’s arms around his waist and examined the pretty shine of their gold bands.

Sitting so closely, of course John could tell when Sherlock’s body language changed. Not tense, precisely, but not quite as relaxed as before. He tilted his head back to look at the bemused frown on Sherlock’s face.

“What is it, Sherlock?”

“My father,” said Sherlock. “He came. He came all this way. Not to stop me, or fight, or demand I go home. He just. Wants. I think he just wants me to be happy.”

“Good.”

Sherlock pressed his cheek to John’s brow. “Yes. It is, isn’t it? Entirely unexpected. And. He hugged me. He hasn’t hugged me since I was six years old.”

“That’s good too.”

“Yes.” He kissed John’s brow then, and a second time. “It’s strange,” he continued at last. “I left England thinking he hated me. Mycroft too, I think. Mycroft used to be such a prig. We fought all the time. Today he was my best man. My brother. Coming to Australia saved him, I think. I think it may have saved me too.”

They kissed again, John’s hand in Sherlock’s hair, Sherlock’s hand cupping John’s jaw. “All those friends we have, John,” he said, between kisses over John’s mouth, nose, cheeks. “I never used to think I’d have them. But there they all were.”

John, who’d often felt friendless and abandoned himself before Melbourne, smiled at him. “There they all were,” he agreed.

“I like your parents,” said Sherlock. “And your sister makes me laugh.”

“Yeah. They’re all right, my lot.”

The new husbands relaxed again, content with each other, with how things had turned out at the reception.

John resumed gazing at the rings on their fingers, thinking about family, friends. He’d moved to Australia friendless and futureless, hoping to rediscover himself after nearly dying, and spending months feeling like he was still in that state, on the verge of slipping away.

He’d always been a little lonely, a little on the fringe, and had found a new way to be wholly himself in this country that had no expectations of him.  And then he’d found Sherlock, who wholly liked and wanted the new John that John had become.

Today, reunited with his family after so long apart, John realised those fraught days after his discharge had never been them wanting to fight with him. They were just trying to understand, when he didn’t even understand himself, and hurting for him when he was too hurt to help them see how he’d changed, how broken he felt. None of them had known how to deal with it all. But now, on the other side of healing, where he’d found acceptance and happiness, there they were – happy for him, not caring that he’d changed, so long as he was content within himself.

And he was. He was John Watson – barista, photographer, artist, detective’s assistant and bodyguard to same, Melburnian, Brit-Australian, adoring husband, happiest man in the world.


	10. Pobblebonk

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> A honeymoon in Lorne, and a homecoming at Captains of Industry.

John and Sherlock’s honeymoon in Lorne was mostly seven lazy days of late breakfasts on the veranda of their 1874 Grand Pacific Hotel room, admiring the view when they weren’t admiring each other. Late lunches alternated between The Bottle of Milk on Mountjoy Parade, which had the best coffee, and the multi-coloured outdoor delights of the Swing Bridge Café, close by the beach.

They read in the shade; they took long walks along the Great Ocean Road around  the little town, sometimes looking for signs of the historic shipwrecks along the shore. They weren’t birdwatchers, but the kookaburras and sulphur crested cockatoos, rosellas and king parrots got a beady eyeful of them, holding hands, or racing each other across the sand, or gazing at the views, or kissing each other.

The January sun was fierce. John, like any well-informed Aussie, slowly built up a golden tan without getting sunburnt by taking to the sea in the later afternoon. Sherlock, being the type to burn to a crisp with the least effort, watched from under an umbrella and a sunhat and dense layers of sunblock until sunset, when he’d strip down to his running shorts and singlet to jog the length of the beach.

John sometimes joined him, though the old leg injury sometimes slowed him down. When not racing Sherlock up and down the beach, he sat on the rocks and admired the view – often of that deliciously athletic view, though sometimes of the ocean and the town, too.

Sherlock swam, too, then, laughing, wrapped John in a salty, soggy hug and they’d pash on the beach. There was an attempt to have sex on the beach, too, one 3am, with the moonlight rippling over the waves, but that was thwarted by an unexpected echidna waddling by towards the water. Sherlock in his running shorts, John in a pair of small footy shorts that Sherlock had packed just for the pleasure of seeing John wear them at the beach, they sat with their arms around each other and watched the unlikely animal make its way to the surf and spend several minutes swimming and grooming itself in the sea.

The non-sex-holiday highlight was Sherlock’s time in the annual Pier-to-Pub race, which was the reason they’d chosen Lorne in the first place. Slathered in sunscreen to save his pale skin, Sherlock went into the water at the Pier in the middle of the Senior Males pack. John jogged down the foreshore, following the swimmers until Sherlock emerged ahead of most of them at the Lorne Surf Lifesaving Club the Pub end of the race.

“What’s my time?” Sherlock asked, scrubbing his hands through his ringing wet curls.

“I’ve clocked you at thirteen minutes ten.”

Sherlock nodded. Not the record time of 10 minutes, thirty seconds, but respectably ahead of the 22 minute average.

“I’ll have my congratulatory kiss now,” Sherlock declared. John, laughing, obliged, wrapping his sun-and-jogging-warmed arms around Sherlock’s ocean-chilled skin.

“Get a room!” shouted someone.

“They’re newlyweds!” shouted someone else who worked hospitality at their hotel and knew the signs.

Random people wished them well; someone handed John a bottle of the Forrest Brewing Co’s Pobblebonk, with a slap on the back and “Congratulations! Goodonya!”

They flopped down in the shade after that, Sherlock towelling himself dry while John necked the beer straight from the bottle. He handed it to Sherlock, who raised an eyebrow at the picture of the frog on the label.

“Pobblebonk?”

“It’s the sound they make, a mating call maybe,” grinned John, then imitated it. _Pobblebonk._

Sherlock swigged the beer, belched politely into his fist, then, with the primmest expression imaginable, said, _Pobblebonk._

John _pobblebonked_ back at him and they giggled like kids and then, seeing as they had a room, wandered back up the hill to make good use of it. (After they had, Sherlock lay sprawled on his back on the bed under a stripe of afternoon sun. _Pobblebonk,_ he whispered and John, sprawled beside him, giggled until he wheezed.)

They drove home along the winding, stunning length of the Great Ocean Road, dropped the Green hire car off and lugged their bags up the 17 stairs to Captains of Industry before heading home.

The gang was all there. Mrs Hudson in the kitchen, baking.  Greg was leaning at the doorway to Mycroft’s studio while the two of them compared cloth and leather samples for their mutual client, Sherrinford Holmes, who stood between them, expressing preferences for deep grey with a dark green twill and a matching deep green stain on the leather shoes Greg was designing for him.

Mary was there with James planning a holiday to India, listening attentively to advice from Jack and Fiona Watson, who’d been to Delhi, Jaipur and Agra four years ago.

Molly giving someone’s Full Ned Kelly beard a moisturising treatment and a trim, while Sally sat at her usual table scribbling song lyrics. Harry sat next to her, and arm slung around Sally’s waist, her hair dyed by Molly into rippling layers of palest green to mermaid aquamarine, reading a handwritten journal.

John dropped his bag by the door.

“That’s my journal,” he said grimly.

“Johnnie!” Harry called in greeting, then waggled the book. “This is excellent reading. That whole thing with the blue-ringed octopus, oh my god! And your skanky neighbour! And fuck me, that Professor dude! All that stuff for Morstan here, too. We’ll have to change the names and identifying details, of course, but with your photo art for the covers too, it’ll be a bestseller, mark my words.”

“Where. Did. You. Get. My. Journal?”

“Aaaaaah,” said Sherlock before Harry could answer.

John turned to arch an cranky eyebrow at him. “And my ‘aaaaah’ you mean?”

“You said Harry was in publishing. I thought she ought to see it, so I… put it on the spare bed for her to find.”

“You did.”

“Yes. You want to write a book.”

“I do, do I?”

“Yes, you do,” said Sherlock, “But you were never going to show her. Too modest.”

“You said you hated my stories. You said, and I quote, ‘John, you’ve turned what should have been instructive exercises in pure logic into romances.”

“I didn’t say I didn’t _like_ them.”

“They’re brilliant John,” said Harry, “And your boy’s notes in the margins are fucking gold. We’ll have to format them in!”

Instead of looking (he’d seen them before) John pulled Sherlock into a sudden kiss, bumped his nose against Sherlock’s and said, “Well, you’re right. As usual. My husband the genius.”

“I am rather clever,” Sherlock agreed. “Look who I picked for a husband.”

Soon there’ll be coffee and Mrs Hudson’s perfect madeleines, the best haloumi burger in the world and home-made ginger beer.

Soon John and Sherlock will talk about the swim race and the echidna, and in passing Sherlock will (right where his father can see) solve two puzzling cases for Mary Morstan and the clients she defends without even seeing her case folders.  Soon everyone from the café will trade their favourite stories of The Baker Street Agency, its principal detective and his right hand man, impressing the Watsons, and allowing Sherrinford Holmes to see both his sons’ achievements with astonishment then quiet pride.

Soon life will continue as happy and as varied as before; richer too, with all these reconciliations with family who are no longer strangers.

But just for this minute, there are two men, madly in love, kissing amongst the tables where they found each other, and took a risk on each other, and made a life together.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> The [pobblebonk is a kind of frog](https://wildambience.com/wildlife-sounds/eastern-banjo-frog-pobblebonk/) but it's also a [boutique beer](https://forrestbrewing.com.au/beers/pobblebonk/).
> 
> The [Grand Pacific Hotel was built in 1874 and is beautiful](http://www.grandpacific.com.au/).
> 
> [The Bottle of Milk](http://www.thebottleofmilk.com/) does the best coffee in Lorne.
> 
> The[ Pier to Pub race ](http://www.lornesurfclub.com.au/Content/PierToPub%22) every January usually has over 3000 people swimming it, and is the largest open water swim in the world.


End file.
